Video Firm Conviva Gets $20M B Round

Written by Ryan Lawler

Monday, August 25. 2008 at 06:00 AM EDT Post a comment

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Video management firm Conviva Inc. announced today that it has raised a $20 million financing round to target broadcasters and sports leagues that want to broadcast live video on the Internet.

The Series B round was led by UV Partners and includes existing investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Foundation Capital . Altogether, the company has raised a total of $29 million.

Conviva, formerly known as Rinera Networks Inc. , claims to have tackled the technological and economic issues faced by companies looking to get into live video.

Conviva CEO Carlos Ramon, who formerly held the position of general manager for Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM)'s international business, says he is intimately aware of the challenges faced by content owners looking to go live on the Web.

"Live video delivery fundamentally does not work today," Ramon says. From a technological standpoint, he says live experiences have major problems. "It's like playing Russian roulette with a revolver that has one chamber and one bullet in it."

Furthermore, he says that live video doesn't work from an economics perspective. "If you are a content owner trying to publish an event, you are punished by the cost of the long form and by the quality," Ramon says.

Conviva's current target customers are broadcasters and sports leagues that are looking for cost- and network-efficient ways of delivering video, but the company is cagey on the details. It claims not to have a peer-to-peer (P2P)-based solution, or a server-based solution, but something brand new and built from the ground up.